


the end justifies the means

by misthalleries



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Spoilers for Lost/Unwound Future, obviously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:45:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5799340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misthalleries/pseuds/misthalleries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The world’s a cruel place, and Clive’s elected himself to change that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the end justifies the means

**Author's Note:**

> This was for an app I made about... six months ago, but, hey. Why not? You can call it a character analysis, if you want, but frankly I don't know what it is. It's literally just several thousand words about Clive Dove.
> 
> Of fucking course there's spoilers.

You dream of

fire.

Raging jaws of yellow eat at cracking wood, spitting sparking embers of glowing red at the ground before its feet. All consuming, it grabs and gobbles and devours, anything and everything (it eats and it eats and it eats, it destroys and destroys and destroys)— and petals of gold streak at the splattered sky, dancing in a horrifically stunning, terrifyingly gorgeous display of brilliant lights. Something dry scratches terrified at your skin, claws desperately at your throat— and you’re screaming, screaming, and even if pain tears at your insides and even if terror clutches your thoughts and even if despair turns your insides inside out, outside in, flips them over and threatens to spill them out, in naked pure horror, you don’t care, you can’t care, because—

your parents your parents your parents

(they’re dying.)

“Let me back in! I need to go back! My parents—”

mum, dad

“— they’re still inside! They’re going to—”

you can’t say the words, you can’t you can’t

(they’re going to die, and you can’t do anything about it.)

“Please! Mum, Dad, I need to get back, I need to help them, I need—”

(I need I need I need—)

“Get yourself together boy!” The voice swims in uncertainty, a face swims in grayness. All you notice, really, is the black tophat, lined with red.

(red like blood, you think, faintly)

Something hits you, physically, and it sends of millions of bells in your head, ringing and vibrating and sends your entering being into quivering, shaking, trembling; and, light, clearness, it mops up the fog that crowds your head— you didn’t even notice, that it was there— and stark clarity stings your eyes and your thoughts, and a throbbing sends you into reality.

“There’s nothing to be done. Go back in there, and you’ll die, too!”

...but, but—!

“N— no…!”

You can’t accept his words— you can’t you can’t, because it makes you think of things you’ve never dreamed of thinking, dark thoughts that clutch at you and scream at you and it’s a silence you can’t— you won’t— take, no, you can’t, because if it’s true—

(no, no, no no no no no)

— but there’s a sharp realization to it, even if you can’t admit it— you won’t admit it—

(they can’t be dead, they can’t they can’t mum dad come back this is just a dream, a dream, come back come back come back)

— so instead you just cry into the shoulder of a stranger, an embrace spilled of grief and despair in a warzone of nothing but loss.

 

 

She’s a nice woman, they tell you. She’ll take care of you, they tell you.

“I guess,” you say, because that’s the only thing that stops them from saying anymore— stops them from nagging at the tender part of your heart, the part you’d rather leave sacred, guarded,

untouched.

(because that part was reserved only for them)

She’s nice,

(I guess)

and she’s good,

(I guess)

and you spare her a small smile when the stranger (not the same man as the one at the fire; he smiles, but it’s distant and fake and made of glass, not the frown etched deep into the face of the man with the top hat, rich with tears and full and real) leads you up her big staircase, through her big doors, into her big house,

and she smiles right at you, her grin sweet and bright and looks as if it’s made of candy.

Her name’s Dove— like the bird— and it’s yours, now, too. And you inspect the name, the way you’d inspect a new pair of shoes— turning it over and over and over, glancing at it from different corners, peering at it from a distance, scrutinizing it, and you’re sure unsure, since it’s a new identity but you don’t want a new identity (because your old one was perfectly fine)— but it’s not like you have a choice, anyway. So you take it (scowl at it, for a moment), then pin it on your lapel, like a badge.

(You’re still not too sure what to think of it.)

Clive Dove.

(...it doesn’t sound too bad, you think.)

She offers to buy clothes for you, because everything you’ve ever worn (everything you’ve ever owned) was lost in that fire— and we can’t just have you wearing those gray drabs forever, can we? And you oblige, because there’s no point in disagreeing, no point in saying no to your new… your new mother.

The ride to the mall’s quiet, and when she tries to talk all you do is stay silent and stare at your hands, folded into your lap, as if they’re the most interesting thing in the world. When sadness and disappointment— and, to your astonishment, it’s for herself, not for you— strikes through her expression something of guilt binds at your throat, and all you can do is attempt to swallow it down like bile, because you can’t feel bad for someone who’s supposed to replace your mother, your parents, your family—

but it’s still there, and all you can do is ignore it.

You’re wandering through the selections, and when she asks you what you want all you can do is shrug and keep quiet— it’s all you seem to be doing, now, and you can’t really seem to mind. She jokes and wonders if you actually have a working voice box, but your blank stare (all that needs to be said, everything that can’t be said) shuts her right up.

(and the guilt’s pounding again)

She decides on blue (“It’s such a good color for you, isn’t it?”, but you don’t say that you prefer green a little more, because like it really matters, now) and she buys more clothes than she needs to and you see more clothes than you’ve ever seen in your life, and she smiles wide and sweet and gives you a blue cap to wear because,

“Doesn’t this look good on you? What a little gentleman you are, Clive.”

(but I like green, better)

Though like it really matters, now.

Because you’re clumsy you find yourself stumbling on those large steps of hers (and you think— in a flash of anger— why the bloody hell does she need some large stairs, anyway—?!) and you’re trying not to cry from the red skin that burns at your knees. She’s polite enough to turn away from the hot searing tears you’re absolutely and totally not trying to blink away, polite enough to pull you all quiet into the house and lead you into her room and dap at your wounds, polite enough to scold the stairs with a stern look before asking you if you’re okay.

You want to say thank you— to thank her, to apologize, to break into tears and scream at the unfairness of it all, all at the same time or just not at all, but when she catches your eyes (and they’re full of pure, genuine, concern for you, love for you) something tears within you, and you're frozen, paralyzed—

because you see your parents’ eyes, before you

not Constance’s eyes, before you

and you shut it all up, bottle it all up, give it all up; and you turn away and ignore the disappointment that wells once again in her eyes, ignore the guilt that pounds once again at your insides.

(...she’s not my mom.)

 

 

...she’s dead.

It’s raining, at the funeral (doesn’t it always, you think dryly, because it’s more than appropriate to be sarcastic like this when someone’s utterly dead), and you’re staring blankly at the grave and you don’t know exactly how to feel about this, any of this.

She’s dead.

You’re not sure if you’ve refused to accept it, if you just don’t care—

(she’s dead)

if you're simply numb from grief, if you really just don’t feel anything at all—

(she’s dead)

if you’re angry at her for being dead, if you hate yourself for being so cold.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” they tell you, and you say absolutely nothing, do absolutely nothing because it’s the only appropriate response, the only thing that keeps from them saying anymore— crying elects more pity, and you’re tired of all the pity, all the concern, because everyone’s who ever felt anything like that towards you is—

(dead)

Mum, Dad, Constance—

(and you wonder; is this fate?)

Does everyone you ever have to care about, everyone you should ever have to care about, have to turn up, sooner or later—

(dead?)

You want to blame yourself, to direct these waves of anger and rage and hatred at yourself, to beat at your insides and to bully yourself because, you’re sure, it’s all your fault for being a cold heartless monster who doesn’t deserve to have anyone to love him because he’ll care too much or he’ll care too little, and either way they’re just going to end up dead—

but you can’t, you can’t because you just can’t take anymore of the pain, and you can’t take the truth because it just hurts too much and a sixteen year old can only take so much.

So as you stare at the grave, the sky crying around you but your own eyes utterly (disgustingly) dry, you blame (you hate) the people who killed your parents.

 

 

Your parents’ killer is Bill Hawks.

The bloody prime minister.

You want to laugh— you’ve become a journalist at seventeen, for this very reason, to scour the papers for your parents’ killer (because the media never covered it, they never spoke of it, no one ever knew about it except for the people who suffered because of it), and after dozens upon dozens of overnight hours, of coffee driven research and hair-tearing work— this is what comes up?! That the one man you vowed to destroy is the very man you could only ever dream of touching?!

(this must be fate, you despair)

Once the name’s scrounged from the depths of what seems to be hell itself, it isn’t too hard to click the other pieces together— he was the man, a little under a decade ago, who’d pioneered the time travel machine and the science behind it. He was the man who knew it wouldn’t work, but still forged on, because a company was waiting for their promised technology. He was the man who set off that damn explosion, killing ten people just to sneak away to sell the tech for a fortune. He was the man, despite all his evils and despite all his crimes and despite all he’s done to hurt everyone else just for his damn, bloody selfishness— who became the bloody prime minster of the entire United Kingdom.

And you’re just a simple journalist who wields nothing but a typewriter and a notepad.

(oh, this is truly, truly fate)

You want to laugh, cry, throw things at the wall, curl into a ball and never come to the world again. It’s unfair, completely unfair— how he’s killed and lied but got everything he wanted, how you’ve suffered and despaired but earns absolutely, utterly nothing.

The world is cruel, you think. If only it’d been someone different. If only you had more power. If only it’d never happened. If only, if only, if only.

If only it could be changed.

(something flickers, within you)

...perhaps— perhaps, that is the answer.

Perhaps— if the world does not elect to change, you should change it yourself.

Because if the world’s not going to stand for this cruelty, for this unfairness, for the people who suffered but never earned anything for their labor— well, then, maybe he should instead.

You look at the paper, again. Dimitri Allen.

...maybe you have to cancel that dinner after all.

(Sorry, Melanie.)

 

 

(and in the corner of your eye, you connect the tophat from all those years ago to a name.)

(Hershel Layton.)

“...thank you for saving my life,” you whisper to the photo.

You never imagined you’d say that again, ten years after your parents’ death, ten minutes after he’d foiled your plan, ten seconds before you’re arrested— perhaps for life. But you do, and when you do, something breaks inside you (all the anger, fury, terror, despair) and you fall to your knees, while something twists inside you—

and for the first time in ten years, you weep.


End file.
